Dear Sir,
In the ordinary course of business we should not think of troubling you, a distinguished officer of the incomparable force to which you belong, with the contents of this letter. Although it is merely to notify our intention of closing down our trading post, Fort Cupar, at Fox Bluff, on the Hekor River, which is within one hundred miles of the Alaskan boundary, there are reasons lying behind the simple fact such as we feel you, in your official capacity, will be interested to hear.
Put as briefly as possible these are the reasons.
Fort Cupar at Fox Bluff has been one of our fur-trading posts, yielding us a very fair harvest of Beaver, Fox, Sable, Seal. Up to some eighteen years ago we had reason to consider it our most profitable post. Then came a slump. This came suddenly. And, according to our factor’s interpretation, it was simply, and solely due to the appearance of a large band of foreign poachers, who, without scruple for humanity, or international honesty, terrorized the Eskimo into passing them their trade at starvation values, or, if they refused, robbed them with the utmost violence.
These reports at the time were duly passed on to the headquarters of the police, and were, I believe, carefully looked into. But for reasons of which we have no cognizance, possibly the far inaccessibility of the country, possibly because these poachers were located on the United States side of the Alaskan border, possibly under pressure of work in the various gold regions, which is the primary duty of your officers, these poachers were permitted to continue their depredations, which, as far as we can ascertain, involved amongst other crimes that of almost wholesale murder.
Our concern now is to tell you that for the last fifteen to eighteen years we have struggled to carry on our post in this region in the hope that things would ultimately straighten themselves out, and our trade return to its normal prosperity. But this has not been the case. Apparently, from our factor’s reports, the methods of these poachers, who seem to be a race of Alaskan Eskimo, who are known as the Euralians, have changed only in process but not in effect. Now they seem to be divided up into lone bands of marauders, frequently at war with each other. There seems to be no controlling chief as there was in years gone by. They operate within the Arctic Circle, and only amongst the Eskimo of that region. And the one time descents upon the more southern communities of whites and natives no longer take place. Meanwhile, however, all trade in the furs we desire is at an end. Therefore we are reluctantly forced to close down, and thus another serious blow to the Canadian fur trade is involved.
I am, Sir,
Yours truly,
For The Fur Valley Corporation
James Steely